My other books: The Tao of Spiritual Partnership (2012) & The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self (2013) & Emotional Unavailability & Neediness (2014) are @ Amazon. "Rewiring the Soul" is now also available in German & Spanish.

"A revelation of insight into the foundations of human suffering & transcendence. It not only lays out essential steps for inner freedom and joy but illuminates the way to true human potential." Paul Rademacher, author: A Spiritual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world and practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd, author: Daring To Be Yourself

Monday, April 2, 2007

Use a Rainy Day As An Exercise To Elevate Your Low Mood

Photo Credit click hereEaster holidays (Semana Santa) began here in Spain last Friday, and run through to Easter Sunday, a full 10 days for many lucky people. Some of these have braved heavily congested roads to get down here from Madrid, Bilbao, and Barcelona to the Mediterranean beaches in the hopes of some summery weather (which we had already been enjoying late February, sunning on the beach, no less).

However, as luck would have it, rain has been forecast since late last week right into the middle of this Easter holiday week. Last night it poured and thunderstorms and lightning threatened the precarious state of the electricity to which my precious computer equipment is connected, and I debated whether I should go the safe route and turn it all off, surge protectors notwithstanding. As I am working most of the week, I've had occasion to observe the effect this somewhat foul weather is having on other's moods.

We've all been there...wake up in the morning hoping to see the sun shining, or a blue sky, and find instead, greyness, or clouds or rain. In the larger scheme of things, this isn't particularly important, but for many of us, it actually makes or breaks our day...especially if it happens to hit us during holiday time.

It's not fair, we rage. We only have these few days off...it was so beautiful all those weeks when I had to work so hard, even on weekends!

So this is what I meant when I wrote yesterday that we can literally grow to inner freedom by using the events of our daily lives as exercises in whatever they present us with. In this instance, learning, or being willing to, or recognizing that we have the choice to regard the weather situation as something beautiful, rather than something which is spoiling our plans, that we can be felixible and change our plans, and that we can learn to see the beauty in this type of weather, even walking down the beach in the slanting rain and wind in order to experience something new. It can be rather exhilarating.

How does this bring us to greater inner freedom? By allowing us to learn that we can be joyous no matter what the outer circumstances. It really just requires that we make some choices about how we want to feel today, rather than thinking we only have one road to walk on.